CFP – Panel: “25 Years of Children’s Rights in Africa”

Please find below a symposium abstract submitted by myself and Dr. Samuel Okyere (University of Nottingham) to the organising committee for next year’s ASAUK conference in Sussex (Sept. 2014).

We are now inviting people to submit abstracts for individual papers to this panel. This must be done through the ASAUK website:http://www.asauk.net/conferences/asauk14.shtml

If this is not applicable to you I would appreciate it if you could forward this to any of your contacts who may be interested in this call.

Below is our panel abstract:

25 Years of Children’s Rights in Africa:Assessing the Impact of the CRC and the ACRWC

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) will both be celebrating their 25th anniversaries in November 2014 and July 2015 respectively. The CRC was hailed as a significant milestone in the promotion of children’s rights at the global level, just as the ACRWC was also lauded for its ambition to offer correctives and fill any gaps left by the CRC with respect to the rights of African children. The CRC in particular has made notable progress in informing amendments to constitutions as well as leading to the introduction of children’s rights acts into the legislative framework of a significant number of countries in Africa and elsewhere. Yet, expectations that the CRC and ACRWC would have a positive and significant impact on the lives of African children have not necessarily been realised. Overall, progress of the two international treaties has been constrained by a number of factors. Most notably, the CRC stands accused of attempting to impose Western ideals on African societies, while the ACRWC has paradoxically witnessed poor ratification by African countries including some which were involved in its formulation.

As both international treaties approach their 25th anniversaries, the panel aims to take stock of their progress and the impact they have had on the lived experiences of children in various social, cultural, economic and political contexts across sub-Saharan Africa. Papers adopting sociological, anthropological and social policy perspectives will be particularly welcomed.

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